Blink
by TheAlabasterPhoenyx
Summary: It is dark, and she does not recognize him. He is just another hot guy stumbling through the crush of the club, halfway blacked, tall and dark and handsome and looking for a girl to take home. She is not entirely sober herself, and in the strobing lights, he looks like just the thing to make her forget.
1. Chapter 1

**I don't usually write Sky High fic, but this idea caught me and wouldn't let me go until I finished it. Mira has been an OC of mine for a long time (in another fandom, actually), but she fit in so well here that I couldn't resist. I watched Sky High again a few months ago with some friends, and I was struck by how wholesome Warren Peace is. I wanted to write him with a character who's just as tough as him - and just as sweet.**

**This is a departure from my usual style. It's been a few years since I've posted anything here, and this is a different sort of story.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize from the movie. Please enjoy!**

* * *

It is dark, and she does not recognize him. He is just another hot guy stumbling through the crush of the club, halfway blacked, tall and dark and handsome and looking for a girl to take home. She is not entirely sober herself, and in the strobing lights, he looks like just the thing to make her forget.

They are fucking in the women's room before she recognizes him, and by then all she can do is laugh, too drunk to care, too far gone to stop. And when they are breathing heavily, sweaty and sated, when he mutters his invitation into her neck, all she can do is nod, and run her fingers through his hair and down his back, and stumble into a taxi with him all over her -

And even though she knows who he is, she does not hesitate to follow him home, to let him taste her and touch her, to stumble into his room, to sleep in his bed. She is too drunk to care, and she is touching him too much to stop.

He is warm and solid under her hands, and they are both sloppy and sweaty and drunk, and his mouth is hot on her skin and his hair is silky in her fingers, and she kisses his tattooed wrists because they are the part of him she knows best.

She wakes up sore, and she can feel his warmth behind her, and she groans at the sunlight before she remembers who he is.

His arm tightens around her waist, solid and strong, and she can't help but squirm. He mutters something into her hair. They are both still naked, she realizes. She does not think he knows her name.

But she knows his, so she would like to keep it that way. If she had been thinking straight last night, she would have left after he had fallen asleep.

She shifts again, trying to slide out from under his arm, but his grip is too tight - he grumbles again, and then she can tell he is awake by the way his arm suddenly lets her go. He rolls over onto his back, groaning, flopping one arm over his eyes.

She has clipped her bra back on by the time he sits up, and she is looking for her underwear. She thinks she might have left it on the floor of the women's bathroom, actually, and sighs. Her head is killing her.

"Coffee?" He asks, voice hoarse and hungover. She knows how he feels, and maybe that is what makes her nod.

"If you have any," she replies, immediately regretting it when he stands unsteadily and she catches another glimpse of him. God, he's gorgeous. And naked.

She averts her eyes, blushing, but he does not notice. He is too busy looking for his own clothes, rummaging through a drawer until he finds a pair of boxers. He doesn't bother with anything more, and she supposes this can be her karmic punishment for going home with the man in the first place.

She pulls her dress on, making a face at its new wrinkles, and trying to pull it a little further down her legs than it really wants to go. She doesn't like wearing it the morning after, especially without panties, but it's all she's got. She's not going to sit on the chair he offers her without something over her ass, even if she thinks he might not mind.

He slides a mug of coffee over to her and slumps down in his own chair, crouching over his cup, dark hair hanging like a curtain over his face and almost hiding his mug from view, and she is not surprised to see him gulp down the piping hot liquid like it does not burn him.

She knows it doesn't, but she does not have that luxury. Part of her wants to blink, to wait for the mug to cool down there in her hand while she looks around in silence, but she doesn't want to live through this hangover there too, and she has to give the mug back to him before she leaves, anyway. She's made this dumb decision, and she might as well stick it out.

So she blows on her mug and watches him gulp his down, and thinks that she should probably stop hooking up with strangers.

He's finished the first mug by the time he looks up at her, perhaps a little surprised to see she hasn't left yet. He squints at her, and she makes a wry face, sipping the coffee.

"Do we know each other?" He asks, and she doesn't choke on her coffee. She doesn't. She expected this, eventually.

She sets the mug down and coughs into her hand, and says hoarsely,

"Do we?"

It's a dumb thing to say, especially since she can't keep her eyes from glancing down at his wrists when she says it. He is looking at her when she meets his eyes again, though, like he doesn't believe her.

He's smart not to. She's lying.

It doesn't make it any less annoying.

"I'm from Maxville," she says, sighing. This, if anything, makes him more suspicious. "Your tats - my dad did those."

"You're Alek's daughter," he says, flatly. She wonders what her dad said about her to him. Nothing good, probably.

She can feel her lip start to curl into a sneer at that thought, then snorts, at herself as much as him.

"Yeah," she says. "Mira."

He eyes her for a second before relaxing, getting up to pour himself another cup.

"Warren," he says, "More coffee?"

He ends up giving her a lift home, so she doesn't have to call a cab. Her phone is dead, anyway, and she doesn't know if she could find her way back from his apartment. She thanks him absently as she clambers out of his car, trying not to show her ass to the world. He grunts in acknowledgement and waves away her thanks, obviously still in pain despite the dark sunglasses he wears, and it is not until she gets back up to her apartment that she realizes he's slipped his number somehow into her purse.

It makes her grin wryly, shaking her head, and she knows she should throw it out, forget all about him, avoid him like a plague. She types it into her phone, though, before she throws it away.

It's always good to have a superhero's number, right?


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: If it's from the movie, it's not mine.**

* * *

She doesn't go back to that club, and she doesn't text him, but she sees him again not even two weeks later. He walks into her parlor, does a double-take, and clearly considers walking right back out the door. He has a friend with him, though, a girl wearing black and purple to his black and red, and she doesn't seem to notice his sudden indecision. She walks right in, leaving him no choice but to follow.

They avoid eye contact as long as they can, her talking to his friend and him admiring the artwork on the walls. She came for a tattoo, she says, something that will remind her of her boyfriend. She raises her eyebrows at this, determinedly not looking at the man she hooked up with not even two weeks before.

"How long have you two been together, then?" She asks, turning away to pull out the paperwork. She hears the girl snort, and Warren makes a choking sound.

"Not this blockhead," she says, giving her companion a good-natured shove. "He's just my chauffeur. My boyfriend goes somewhere else."

She nods, and that's the end of it. She sketches something for the girl, a few designs, and she tries very hard not to give away that she knows Warren - or the boyfriend, or the girl, for that matter, because she recognizes them all. Even if she didn't get it right away, she would still put it together once the girl starts describing things that make her boy unique - he's got so much energy, you know, like he never runs out of battery, and he's always so positive, a real light in my life, et cetera. She only gets the irony because she knows them both - and that's why she ends up with a design that really would remind the girl of her boyfriend.

She can tell the girl is impressed, but she can also tell Warren is looking at her now. She dares a glance up at him, immediately caught in his stare, and it's sort of unfair that he's just as handsome when they're both sober.

He schedules an appointment for a tattoo for that evening, and she knows it's so he can talk to her alone. He noticed that she knew the girl's boyfriend, even if the girl didn't.

So when he comes in, she makes sure to draw the curtains around her station, and she asks him to tell her what he wants, and where. He's got a few tattoos already, besides the ones she knows her father inked onto him when he was sixteen and angry. A nice one on his upper arm, and one on his back. She thinks there might have been one on his hip, too, but that's more blurry in her mind. She didn't see that one in the morning.

"Draw me something," he says, shrugging, like he doesn't care. It's a test, she knows, but she pulls out paper and a pencil like he's any other client, and ask him for some ideas. Usually, everyone has some idea of what they want.

"Something that will let people know who I am," he says, and she cannot help but glance at his wrists, covered now by fingerless gloves. He catches her looking, and she shrugs it off. She doesn't think she can get away with this much longer - she knew from the moment she recognized him that he would end up knowing.

It's not like she's hiding. She doesn't have anything to hide, really. It just makes her itch. She moved out here to get away from Maxville, and all that lived in it.

She looks at her paper, and at him, and wishes she could blink. That's what she would usually do, hide her paper and open a moment and sketch it until she was satisfied, and then close the moment and show it to them like it took her only a short conversation to do. It's how she's got such a good reputation, but he's watching her too closely.

She sketches something dark, something half in shadows, something noble. It's an eagle, wings outstretched, feathers like fire behind it, half a bird of prey and half a phoenix. She leaves it as it is, a rough sketch, grey and white and shaky, but she grabs a yellow pencil to do its eyes. It has golden eyes.

She doesn't look back up at him until she's done, and she knows she's taken at least ten minutes on this - but he's watching her with just as much intensity as before. She's close enough to see his pupils dilate when she flips the sketch around to show him, and she can see his arousal through his jeans - if there weren't others in this parlor, she would certainly consent to be fucked against her own tattoo station.

But there are, so she can't. It's disappointing, because he's here to get answers out of her, so he can't either. He clears his throat, looks back up at her, fights down his arousal. She does the same.

"I like it," he says, softly. Her smile is fleeting, but it is real. Then she looks down at the sketch, and back up at him -

"Do you actually want a tattoo, or would you like to ask your questions now?"

His eyes narrow, but it's not like he was subtle about it, so he can't blame her.

"You know me," he says. She nods, more reluctant than she thought she ought to be.

"We went to school together," she says. "Mira Maroz. I was a year ahead of you, but we weren't - well, we had different classes, you could say."

"Maroz," he says, slowly, like he is trying to remember. "You hung out with that girl, the quiet one, right?"

"Salma," she breathes, feeling the name hitch in her throat. It still feels like a fishhook in her chest to think about Salma.

Salma, who could take away sounds but could not make them louder. The quiet one indeed.

"I didn't know Alek was your dad," he says. "I thought it was - um, I can't remember his name."

She snorts, because Warren can certainly remember Electroshock's name. He just can't remember his alias.

"Craig's my stepfather," she says. "I lived with my dad."

"So your mom is -"

Flicker, super speed.

"Annie," she says. "Annie Brightman, married to Craig Brightman. My parents got divorced when I was young."

He doesn't look at her with pity. She knows he, of all people, wouldn't. Maybe that's why she says -

"If you don't want this tattoo, maybe we could go grab dinner or something?"

He looks startled, and then he smiles, and she can feel her heart skip a beat at that. She's not sure she saw him smile that night, and certainly not like this.

"I would like that tattoo," he says, "But I could be convinced to wait."

"I've got all the time in the world," she says, laughing, even though she's not sure he even knows about her power. He'll find out soon enough, she's sure.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: No, I am not the creator of Sky High. If you recognize it, it's not mine.**

* * *

He ends up staying over at her apartment that night, and she wakes him up with a piping-hot cup of coffee and a bagel. She's been up for a while - or, well, she's been up in her moment for a while, even though she only woke up next to him a few minutes ago by the clock.

He notices that she's been out for a run, and showered, and dressed, just like she notices that he gulps his boiling coffee like it's water.

"Careful," she says, laughing, "Wouldn't want you to burn yourself."

He rolls his eyes. It only makes her chuckle louder.

"So what's yours?" He only asks after he finishes the coffee, and she pauses from where she is putting her hair up to meet his eyes in the mirror. She debates showing him, then looks away.

"I blink," she says, going back to her hair.

"Blink?" He's confused, it's clear, but she just shrugs. She's not sure how to explain it.

"I stop time."

"You're a tempopath?" He's impressed, far more impressed than he ought to be. Tempopaths are rare, people who can control Time.

"Not really," she says. "I can't go back or forward, and I can't slow it down or speed it up. I've got nothing but a pause button."

It's why Boomer made her a sidekick. That, and - other things. She didn't make a good showing for herself.

"Still." Warren seems determined to be impressed. Maybe it's just because he wants to get back into her pants.

And he does, eventually. He's too pretty to turn down, and too good at sex, even when they're both sober. They go out often, and they sleep together more often than not, and they text daily, and she doesn't realize that they're dating until he casually drapes his arm around her and introduces her as his girlfriend.

She smiles through that, and through the rest of the night, but when they're in bed that night she does not let it go.

"Girlfriend?" Her voice is dry.

He turns over to look at her. She keeps looking at the ceiling.

"Yeah?" He wouldn't sound unsure to anyone else, but she's spent enough time with him by now to know that he's not as confident as his tone would have her believe. Maybe it's the way he's reached out a hand to play with her hair.

She is silent, mulling it over. He waits.

"Girlfriend," she says again, thinking about it.

She narrows her eyes at the word, but it doesn't bother her as much as it should.

She shrugs, turning to face him on the bed. "Might as well," she says, but she kisses him softly to let him know she's not mad. How could she be mad? He's as kind as he is handsome, and he always tells her when he's on call.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sky High, Warren Peace, or anything else you recognize from the franchise.**

* * *

He doesn't move out of his own apartment, but somehow most of his stuff ends up at hers anyway. She can't do laundry without finding his t-shirts and boxers in with her own clothes, and his laptop is always charging at her kitchen table when she wakes up.

He works as a website designer, which pays well even if it has odd hours. Sometimes, he'll be working at a project for days on a deadline, and then go weeks without any work. It's good for the hero life, though.

She owns a tattoo parlor down the road from her apartment. It rankles her to follow in her father's footsteps, but it's one thing that she actually loves to do. Plus, she can decide her own hours, which comes in handy when wrangling injured superheroes.

He was fighting some villain downtown earlier, him and that purple friend of his, and he came home bruised and coughing up blood.

She was not hysterical, even if she did swear at him extensively and run around finding her first aid kit and bandages and a new set of clothing.

"Fuck, Warren, what the fucking hell were you thinking," she mutters, even if he can't do anything but groan in response.

She doesn't hesitate to open a moment.

It's in the moment that time stops, and stretches, and gives her the space to work. She doesn't have to worry about him bleeding out or choking on his own blood, because she has all the time in the world.

He has two broken ribs, and a punctured lung, and enough bruises to make him regret being alive.

But she's a trained medic, and she has the skill to fix this. It takes her a long time, slowly teasing apart each problem and blinking moments open and closed so the stress of her treatments don't all hit at once, and by the time he's stable, she's exhausted.

She brings him with her into another moment, and sleeps. He needs the time to heal, and she knows he would not hesitate to go back out to save someone if they needed him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I am not the owner of Sky High or any of its characters.**

* * *

It isn't the first time she's used her powers around him, but it's the first time she's brought him with her. Usually, he sees only the after effects of her moments, when she's sweaty from a run or her hair is suddenly dry or she's up at three in the morning, perfectly rested.

This time, though, he wakes to a perfectly silent world, with only his girlfriend reading a book beside him, and he knows immediately what has happened.

"How long?" His voice is raspy, and his chest hurts like hell, but he can breathe again.

She looks up at him, eyeing his bandages critically and deciding that he probably hasn't healed enough to get up yet.

"You've been out for a few days, I think," she says, putting her book down to grab her instruments for another check-up.

"The clock?"

She shrugs.

"A minute, maybe. I'll probably have to cut us back in soon. I've never held one longer than a day or two."

A nod, and she's pleasantly surprised with how he's healing.

She puts a hand gently on his chest, centers herself, and blinks. Sound rushes back in like a thunderclap, and Warren winces. He was out of it enough when she did it before that he didn't notice.

"You get used to it," she says, blinking again, and suddenly it's silent again.

He shakes his head, looking at her, and she runs a hand down his bandages, soft and gentle, eyes downcast. He can tell she is upset, and he braces himself for her to blow up at him.

All she says, though, is-

"I'm glad you pulled through."

It makes him wince again, because that tells him exactly how close he was to something awful.

"Mira-" He clears his throat, tries again. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't think it would be this bad."

"You're fucking lucky I knew how to fix you," she snaps, snatching her hand away from him, clenching it into a fist. "Asshole, did you think what it would fucking do to me if you fucking bled out on my own damn carpet?"

Her hand is in a fist because it is shaking. Now that she's sure he isn't going to die, she's furious again.

He flinches back from her, and she stands in a huff. They are the only two living things in the entire world right now, and he can hear every muttered 'why don't I just kill you and save myself the fucking trouble' as she paces up and down her quiet apartment.

He wants to go up to her and hug her, keep her still until she breaks down like he knows she wants to, but even shifting slightly makes him gasp in pain.

She turns at the sound, brow knitted in just as much concern as anger.

"Sit still, asshole, or you'll fuck up my bandages."

Still, she comes back over to check them, make sure he can't hurt himself, and he grabs her hand before she can lift it off his chest. The movement makes him wince, but he holds on.

She stills, looking at him.

"I'm sorry, Mira."

She looks away, but not before he sees the yawning fear in her eyes.

"Hey," he tugs her hand a little, getting her attention. "Look at me, Mira. I'm nearly indestructible. I've healed from much worse than broken ribs before."

She shakes her head, muttering,

"Doesn't matter, you idiot, you were still dying in my apartment."

He smiles, though, because he knows this means she cares. He tugs her hand again, and she takes one look at his grin and shakes her head, lips thin in anger and worry but also to keep herself from grinning back.


	6. Chapter 6

**Thank you for those who have favorited and followed this story, and to orangeporqupine for the reviews! I appreciate all your support, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the story :) **

**The chapters vary widely in length, though they tend to be short. These were the scene divisions that made sense when I was originally writing it. We are about halfway through now.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sky High.**

* * *

He never asks her to take him with her when she blinks, and she never asks him to bring her when he goes off to be a hero. Neither of them offer, and they live like a couple of ordinary citizens as much as they can.

When asked, she says the best part is the sex. It's not a lie - the sex is amazing - but it's not entirely the truth, either, not by the time he brings her to meet his mom and she tells him why she won't be returning the favor.

Her dad died a few years back, but that's not the reason she tells him, because that's not why she's in this city and the rest of them are back in Maxville.

It's because her mom left her when she was five years old, and she took her baby brother, and she married a man who did not care for her daughter at all, and she spent the next twenty years making a new, better family with the Brightmans. It's because she only heard from her mom on Christmas and her birthday, and when she got her powers at age eleven.

It's because she grew up silent and alone, with a drunk for a father and a mom who didn't care.

These are not things she tells to just anyone, and Warren can tell. He hugs her to his side and says she can spend the holidays with him and his family.

This is the sort of thing she really should say no to, these steps toward an actual relationship, but she can't say no to him. It's a problem, and if she thinks about it, she sort of freaks out, and she's never cared this much about anyone else. She stays up for him when he's out saving the world, and she patches him up every time, and she makes sure he's alright before he goes out again.

He cooks for her after a long day at work, and takes her out dancing when she's been alone too much, and keeps her up late until she's asleep on his chest, curled up into him like he won't leave if she just clings to him hard enough.

It's not the sex that keeps her with him, but she doesn't want to admit that it's anything else. Anything else scares her.


	7. Chapter 7

**One of my favorite things about Warren in the movie was that he spoke Chinese with his boss at the Paper Lantern. I chose to have him speak Mandarin over any other language spoken in China because that's what most of my Chinese friends speak. I don't know what language he actually spoke in the movie.**

**Once again, thank you to everyone who is reading this story!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sky High.**

* * *

They got together in the summer, and it's Christmas now. It's been long enough that she really shouldn't still wake up and look for him like he would have left in the night.

It's been long enough that she really shouldn't be surprised to find he is fluent in Mandarin.

"Since when can you speak Mandarin?" She's taken aback, and slightly annoyed, that he managed to keep this from her for so long. He grins at her, crooked and proud, and she shoves him a little.

"I learned from my grandma's family," he says, laughing and shoving her back hard enough that she stumbles a few steps over. She glares at him, huffing a laugh. "I worked for my great-aunt for a long time when I was younger."

"That's right," she says, remembering - "You worked at that Chinese restaurant out in the suburbs."

He nods, still grinning. It wasn't often that he could get away with something like this - sometimes, it feels like she is too observant for her own good.

"Well, damn, son." She looks him up and down. "Any other tricks I should know about?"

He leans down to whisper in her ear -

"I think I could show you a couple."

She snickers at his tone, hitting him on the arm.

"I don't know, buddy, I think I've seen everything you've got."

He grabs her hand before she can hit him again, and they end up holding hands as he introduces her to the rest of his family.

It's him and his mom, usually, but a few of his mom's cousins have come by for a Christmas gathering, from the Peace side as well as the Liu side. She meets one of the cousins, a lady who took over the restaurant after her grandparents retired, and another - someone she recognizes as Hypno-man, an older generation hero who must be from the Peace side of the family.

There aren't that many, and it's easy enough to walk a half step behind Warren, like his shadow, so she does not really have to talk that much herself. She likes seeing him interact with his family, especially the Chinese side. It's like seeing a different person in her boyfriend, this awkward young man who still gets scolded for having long hair and laughs uncomfortably at the well-meaning but off-color remarks of the older generation. And, she's not shy enough to deny that hearing him speak Chinese is hot.

She ends up roped into a debate on which superhero could defeat the Commander - an old party pastime, especially among the generation of contemporaries to the older superhero. Someone says Electroshock, but she laughs and shakes her head.

"Flicker, maybe, but never Electroshock," she says, meeting Warren's eyes as her conversation partner vehemently defends his chosen hero. She shrugs, unwilling to go any further, and is rescued by her boyfriend just as she is starting to consider blinking herself across the room.

It's an interesting mix, both heroes and civilians in the same room. Everyone is pretending to be normal, though, for the benefit of those who actually are.

It's a relief when the evening ends, and it's just her and Warren and his mom cleaning up and washing dishes and sweeping floors. There's something relaxing about doing housework with holiday music blaring from the speakers. Usually, she does all of her cleaning in the silence of a moment.

She likes his mom. She's beautiful, petite and strong with long dark hair only lightly streaked with grey, and her power is just as strong as it was twenty five years ago. She's an empath, one of the strongest in recent history, and she was a formidable hero in her prime.

It would be a shame to see her as a psychiatrist now if she didn't know exactly how it felt to want nothing to do with the superhero world. She looks at her boyfriend sometimes and wishes she wanted to give herself to strangers like that - but she can't give more of herself to people who would spit on her and turn her away, she just can't.

Lina Peace has a generous heart, but she, too, has felt the stings of fate, and she is not quite generous enough to let it have its way with her. She defied everyone when she fell in love with Barron Battle, even knowing what he did with his power. He, too, to hear Lina tell it, defied everyone to fall for her. He gave up his villainy when she got pregnant, she says, and really - who is there to contradict her?

The Commander found him only because he had stopped moving. There was no big heist, no final battle, just a knock on the door and a plea deal so that his lover and their three-year-old son could grow up free.

Warren never told his girlfriend any of this, but he does not stop his mother from telling the story after one too many glasses of eggnog. He loves his mother, and it shows.

It makes her heart ache, too, for reasons she does not really want to consider. It's no use dreaming of what could have been, for him or for her.


	8. Chapter 8

**Trigger warning: Mention of sexual assault. **

**If you are dealing with sexual assault or its aftermath, you are not alone. There are resources available for you, including free confidential help at the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-4673).**

**Disclaimer: The Sky High franchise doesn't belong to me.**

* * *

"Why didn't you stay with your hero when you graduated," he asks one lazy morning in a post-coital haze, still nursing bruises from last night's heroics.

She snorts, propping herself up on her elbow so she can look down at him.

"I didn't get a hero," she says.

"Everyone gets a hero," he says, dragging her down suddenly so she's laying on top of him.

"They were going to put me with Speed," she says, "But he wasn't available anymore. There's always a few sidekicks who don't get a hero."

"Speed?" Warren sounds angry, but all she does is shrug, rubbing her hand down his chest, his ribs, his pelvis, lower, and watches him forget all about the anger.

"He was my cousin," she says, and he's too distracted to respond.

Later, when they've both showered and dressed, he asks her again.

"Why didn't you request another hero? Half the pairings never work out, anyway."

This time, when she laughs, it's bitter.

"Speaking from experience, huh?" It's his turn to shrug. "I didn't want to go off hero-ing. It's just really not my thing."

He nods, but it's not the end of it. Days later, he brings it up again -

"Why didn't you want to be a hero?"

She sighs, starting to get annoyed.

"Dude, can we not? I didn't want to be a sidekick. I hated the way they treated us in school, and I didn't want to end up like Mr. Boy, a washout still wearing knickerbockers."

"You'd never be caught dead in knickerbockers," he says, wrapping her up in his arms and pinching her ass. "They'd dress you up in a skirt or nothing at all."

She laughs at the feel of his lips on her neck, but pushes him away gently, annoyance forgotten. She could never stay annoyed at him. Angry, sure, but annoyed? Never.

"Another reason - I didn't want to be beholden to some macho asshole thinking my body belonged to him because we wore the same colors."

She sighs, and he does his best not to let that thought ignite the fires in his hands. They sit at his kitchen table. This time, they're both dressed.

"Have you ever killed someone?" He tenses, but she doesn't seem to want an actual answer. She sort of slumps, resting her head on her hand and looking vaguely at the middle of the table instead of at him.

"I was thirteen," she starts, "We had this neighbor."

He isn't sure where this is going, but he doesn't like it. Anything that can make her look so haunted can't possibly be good.

"He was just - you how neighbors are. They're weird. You see them watching you and you're like, oh yeah that's just what Mr. Dilson does. And it's fine, except he starts knocking on the door and asking if I want to play with his dog, and my dad starts getting worried so he tells him to fuck off. And then - well, I don't know. My dad was out getting drunk one night and I thought he might've lost his key again, so I, like an idiot, opened the door when he knocked."

She is tense, and upset, and he holds onto the table top so he doesn't interrupt her.

"Well," she continues after a moment, "I said no, I swear I remember saying no. I ran away, too, and he didn't like that. He caught me - um, well, you know I got my powers when I was young. I didn't know I could bring someone in with me then. I just thought it didn't work, when I could still feel him - he wouldn't stop - so I did it again. I ran away, and I didn't go back until my dad was there, and I didn't wonder why Mr. - why our neighbor had disappeared."

She's not crying, but her voice is hollow, and he gives in. He gets up, crossing to her side in half a second, dropping to his knees and hugging her against his chest. She does not resist, dropping her head to his shoulder. He can hear her as she says -

"The police came around to ask when we had last seen him. Turns out he had a stash of child porn in his apartment, but I think they still have a missing persons case on him. He just - disappeared one day. Didn't even let his dog out."

His grip on her is tight, but she doesn't mind. She hasn't talked about this with anyone in ages. It's not easy.

"That was June," she says. "School started in September."

"Fuck," Warren curses, softly, and she chuckles into his shoulder.

"I didn't really want anything to do with my powers after that."

"So that's why Boomer didn't see what was in front of him," he says, "You didn't want him to."

She nods, extricating herself from him. He gets up, sitting on the edge of the table and looking at her.

"I can open and close moments," she says, "But once they're closed, they're gone. I don't know what happened to him, but nothing changed in my apartment. I don't - well, I don't think he could touch anything. I don't know if he died when I blinked, or whether he's still stuck in the same moment, wandering forever -"

"He deserves worse than that," Warren interrupts, fists smoking. It makes her smile despite herself.

"Yeah," she agrees, "But I still hate it. I never wanted my powers to feel like that, but I can't bring anyone in without worrying I'm going to forget them somehow in that moment when I blink out."

"You brought me in," he reminds her.

"I didn't have a choice," she says.

But it's still something, and it helps.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thank you to all those who have read, favorited, followed, and reviewed this story! I appreciate all your support, especially since this is a story that I wrote simply to indulge myself :)**

**Special thanks to RenkonNairu for your very thoughtful review! Since I thought you had a good point regarding the rating of this story, I felt I should address it below:**

**My test for determining whether a fic is M or T is pretty straightforward: if I wouldn't want my baby sister reading it, I'm marking it M. It's my hope that, because of that decision, everyone reading this story is prepared to read about the topics it contains. Thank you, RenkonNairu, for your thoughtful advice, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story!**

**Disclaimer: I still don't own Sky High, though Mira is mine.**

* * *

He asks her about her medical training one night as she's patching him up yet again.

She pauses, putting her gauze back in the kit.

"I'm certified in a lot of things," she says, suddenly unsure. It's not in her nature to brag - well, not about things she's actually proud of, at least. She'll be brash enough about silly things, things that don't matter at all, things she can joke about.

"You've got all the time in the world, huh?" He smiles at her even though she knows his split lip has got to sting, and she can't help but give him a faint grin back.

"Something like that."

Sometimes, it's like they don't know each other at all. Other times, it's like he's the only real person in her entire life.

And then, sometimes, she is reminded that he has plenty of people in his life, people who love him and who have lived with him much longer than she has.

She knocks on his door one evening after getting off work, tired and pissy and starving. All she wants is to sit and bitch about her customers while watching her boyfriend make her dinner in the apron she got him for Christmas, and then drink a glass of bourbon and have at least two rounds of sex on sheets that she does not have to wash.

So when she pounds on the door, she is not expecting it to be thrown open by an indignant young woman with long braids and a flowing skirt, followed closely by a handsome young man she can only guess is the Commander's kid.

She bites back a curse, trying to remember if Warren ever told her he was having his friends over this week. He mentioned they would be visiting - she can't remember if he said when. Damn it.

"Fuck," she mutters, unable to stop herself. Her filter has been worn down by a very long day.

"Excuse me?" the girl says, eyes narrowed, "Who are you?"

"Is Warren home?" she asks, as polite as she can. It's not very polite, considering how rough her voice is from the yelling match she had with a particularly stubborn drunk who wouldn't leave her parlor not even an hour ago.

"Who's asking?" This is the guy, the boyfriend of the girl, she's guessing. Damn it. He's about as hostile right now as Warren is to strangers, and that's not said lightly.

"His motherfucking girlfriend is asking, so if he's hiding behind you please tell him that if he wants any sex in the next four weeks he'd better fucking _get out here_."

The girl flinches as her voice gets louder, but she only does that because she can see his shadow in the doorway of the kitchen. She can hear him chuckle, and it irritates her.

The two of them are taken aback, but Warren comes to their rescue. He whispers something to the guy, presumably 'no, she's not crazy, yes, she's my girlfriend, yeah, I'd like sex in the next four weeks, please move', and the guy puts a hand in his girlfriend's shoulder. She gives Mira a distrustful look, but moves back into the apartment so the other woman can slide in.

She glares at Warren, who has the good grace not to keep laughing, though he can't quite wipe the smile off his face.

"Come on," he cajoles, opening his arms. "You came here for a reason."

"Fuck you," she says, hostile enough that the guests exchange a look, possibly wondering if they've walked into a fight. But she doesn't hesitate to snuggle right up to her furnace of a boyfriend.

It's cold outside, okay?

"Mira, this is Will, and Layla. They also went to our high school."

"I remember," she mutters, giving up a good impression as a lost cause. "I was still there when the whole homecoming thing went down, remember? You guys were famous all year."

Will blushes a bit, and Layla raises an eyebrow.

"Guys, this is my girlfriend, Mira. I've told you about her," he says, nearly laughing again. She elbows him in the diaphragm, and he doubles over, winded.

"Don't listen to a thing he tells you," she says.

"Well, ah, nice to meet you," Will says, holding out a hand for her to take. She eyes it mistrustfully for a second, then figures that if he tries to pull something she can always take care of herself. He has a firm handshake, but not firm enough to bruise her fingers. It makes her respect him more, knowing that he has control of his strength.

She stays with them for dinner, which Warren makes in the apron she got him, and even if she doesn't get to bitch about her day, they're not bad company at all. They're three years younger than her, which was an age in high school but isn't quite as long now.

They're graduating college in a few months, which makes her a little nostalgic for her own graduation. That's the only reason she starts talking about her own college experience - that and the wine, which Layla brought.

Warren looks surprised that she went to college, and she makes a face at him across the table. She's not sure if she's forgiven him yet for letting her look like a fool in front of his friends.

"I worked my way through," she says, when Will asks about her tattoo parlor.

"Oh, is that how you two met? The parlor?"

He's told them about the eagle tattoo, then. She locks eyes with him across the table, and she can see the blush creeping across his cheeks. She raises one eyebrow, daring him to say it.

He clears his throat, dipping his head lower, says,

"Ah, no. We knew each other before that."

She raises both her eyebrows in surprise. Warren must really be comfortable with these friends of his - she really shouldn't be surprised about that, but she's never seen him admit this to anyone else. He might have told his mom, but only after she'd met - and liked - his girlfriend.

"Oh really? Where did you two meet?" Layla has picked up on the tension like a dog on a scent. She is looking between Mira, who looks like she might start smirking at any moment, and Warren, who looks like he either wants to disappear or laugh.

"A club," he says, not looking away from his girlfriend. There's something weird and sexual going on between the two of them, and if they weren't on opposite sides of the table Layla is sure they would be - well, she doesn't really want to think about it.

"He's too embarrassed to say he hooked up with me before he knew my name," she says, sounding smug. He blushes. Layla looks at him in astonishment, then back at her own boyfriend. Will shrugs, possibly just as caught off guard as she is.

"How long have you been together?" She asks, perhaps a little to bright - or a little too astonished. The woman shrugs, breaking her stare-off with Warren to look over at Layla.

"I'm not sure. We met last summer."

"It's been eight months since our first date," he says, and Mira smiles at him. It's clear and unguarded and immeasurably brief, but in that moment it's obvious how much the two care for each other, despite all the teasing and the swearing and the pushing.


	10. Chapter 10

**Thank you to everyone who has been reading this story! I did not expect such a positive response :)**

**RenkonNairu: Thank you for your review! I can understand your view on the Will/Layla ship. I felt they worked well for the purposes of this story, though I don't have strong feelings either way on the two of them. I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

**Disclaimer: Still no ownership of Sky High for me. Just Mira and my plot :)**

* * *

She doesn't really admit that she loves him until she gets a phone call in the middle of March, and she can hear him panting as he says,

"Mira, I'm going to be late for dinner, I have to save -" and then all she can hear is an ugly squelching sound, and a scream, and a clatter as the phone falls, and someone laughs, and she's blinked before she even knows what she's doing.

It takes her five hours to find out where Warren is, and to bike there, since she can't use the television to figure out where the latest villain attack is. They're usually downtown, so that's where she tries first. It's not until she sees the smoke frozen in the sky that she realizes he was going to dive into a _burning building_ to save someone. It's a good trap for a hero who can light himself on fire. It's also something that she can't help with.

Fire is still fire, whether stopped in time or not.

Her mother can run so fast time slows down for her, but she can jump through flames without being burnt because of how fast she is going. She can even run on water, if she concentrates hard enough.

Mira can't do any of that.

But she can find her boyfriend, and pull out her gun, and shoot the laughing, costumed megalomaniac in both his shoulders and his knees. She can drag Warren to safety and triage his wounds - he'll have a nasty bruise tomorrow on his shoulder and his wrist, but it looks like nothing was broken, and his arm protected his head from the worst of the bat-swing. The phone is nearly shattered there on the pavement, though, and there are shards of glass imbedded in the skin of Warren's face. It lights a cold fury in Mira, and she ends the moment only so she can see the pain on the villain's face as he realizes he's just been shot four times.

She takes Warren into the next moment, barely a second later, and the villain is still in the process of collapsing onto the pavement.

Her boyfriend groans, but does not hesitate to get up and change into his suit - she sighs, but helps him when his arm seizes up.

"Thanks, Mira," he says, giving her a bone-crushing hug. He doesn't comment on the bat-wielding villain, or on the gun in her hand. He does look at the building, calculating how many civilians are still in there, and how many he can get out before it collapses on top of him.

"I can hold it," she says, shrugging. "Go save them all. Just be careful - the flames won't be doing any damage, but your feet will."

He doesn't say anything, but she can see him smile underneath his mask. She breathes his non-burnt scent in deep, then lets him go.

She watches him walk into the burning building, and deliberately turns away, busying herself by digging the bullets out of the villain's body and washing them off, walking them to four different trash cans at least three blocks from each other. She also pulls off the villain's mask and ties him to his own bat, hand and foot, and only then throws away her surgical gloves.

She hates him more than she ever hated anyone, even Speed, even her stepfather, even the man who assaulted her. He made her listen as he tried to kill her boyfriend - and this is when she realizes, oh shit, she loves him.

Deflated, she sits on a curb and watches Warren line the citizens up outside the building, gently putting them on the ground like sleeping children. Shit.

She loves him.

She forgets the villain, forgets the gun in her hand, forgets the blood on the ground and the phone that was destroyed. She just watches him save people, one by one by one, slowly, methodically, immune to the heat and the smoke and the flames. He gets them all out, even the animals, even a bowl of panicked fish.

And then he takes a step back, looks at his handiwork, and sighs. He takes his mask off and she doesn't close the moment until he's just another victim, curled up on the ground, clutching his phone, and she's just a spectator taking a shortcut through a blind alley.

They're a good team, she thinks, as she watches him give a statement to the police. They're saying it was supers - how could it not be, when this clown of a villain is glaring at the paramedics like it's going out of style?

The news doesn't know who it was, though, to shoot Killer Klown in the knees and save fifty two people from a burning building within a split second. It might have been the Black Dragon, they say, he's the only one in the area who can walk into a burning building and come out unscathed - or it might have been someone else.


	11. Chapter 11

**Thank you for reading! We're almost done :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sky High.**

* * *

Warren brings it up a few days later.

"Mira - we make a good team."

"I know, Warren," she says, somehow both defeated and anxious at once. A good team. She loves him.

"We could - if you want, you could come out with me, sometimes," he offers, stumbling over this more than he ever did in their romantic life. He didn't bumble his words this much even on their first date.

She doesn't know what to say. What can she say?

"Mira - I know you didn't want this. I know it scares you - but you're so good at this. We work so well together. You were the one who saved all those people, Mira, not me. I might not have made it if you hadn't been there."

He's grabbed her hand, trying to convince her, earnest and beautiful. She rubs her thumb along the back of his hand, looking down.

"Mira-"

"Fuck," she says, halfway angry, halfway lost. "Fuck, Warren, I love you."

That shuts him up. She is glaring at him now, daring him to say anything. He is looking at her, wide-eyed and surprised, like that was the last thing he expected her to say. She starts to pull her hand away, starts to wave away what she said like they could just forget it, but that's when he unfreezes, lunging across their chairs to kiss her urgently, like a drowning man.

He draws back to breathe, and they are both panting and flushed and his lip is bleeding so she can taste his blood in her mouth, and she wants to fuck him right here on her carpet.

"I love you too," he pants, stealing another kiss, and another, until they do, in fact end up making love on the carpet.

He holds her tight enough that her ribs creak, and she presses as much skin to his as she can, feeling him against her back, solid and warm and beautiful. Their legs are tangled with each other, and she isn't sure where her hair ends and his begins.

"I did it for you," she says, "Not for them."

He kisses her shoulder. "I know."

"I get to choose my own name," she says. "None of this sidekick bullshit."

"You mean no booty skirt?"

She arches back into him, feeling him stir against her.

"Not out there," she purrs, and she can feel his laugh ripple through his diaphragm, his chest, his abs.

"We're partners," he promises, and she nods, weighing her next words carefully.

"Partners," she says, carefully, softly. She can feel him still against her, suddenly holding her like she might break.

"Really?" He breathes, voice quiet on the shell of her ear. She squirms around until she's facing him, mouth to mouth, eye to eye.

"Where else am I going to get someone dumb enough to put up with me?" She asks, not even half joking. He kisses her, probably mostly to shut her up.

"No clashing colors," he warns, and she laughs.

"How can I possibly clash with black?"

He growls at her and then they're kissing, and it's amazing how much sex the two of them manage to have in such a short about of time.


	12. Epilogue

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Sky High franchise, only Mira and this plot.**

* * *

\- Epilogue -

They don't end up getting married or anything, but he finally moves into her apartment and she finally buys him a ring. He buys one for her too, later, but she did it first so she gets eternal bragging rights.

She takes the name Blink, and her superhero outfit is about as far from traditional as she can make it. There's no spandex, no cleavage, hardly any skin showing at all, actually. She wears comfortable cargo pants and a leather jacket, and a skin-tight mask like Warren's, to protect her identity.

Hers has no eyes, just a mouth, and Warren thinks it's weird as fuck. Sometimes she leaves it out for Warren to catch a glimpse of in the mirror when he's half-asleep.

They make a good team. Eventually, they might even have some kids of their own, see if they can do the family thing better than their own parents did. There's no rush on that, though.

They've got all the time in the world.

* * *

**Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did :) **

**Leave a review and let me know what you think! I love hearing from you all.**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


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